A Secret Life_ The Lies and Scandals of President Grover Cleveland - Charles Lachman [137]
Under cloak of darkness, at two in the morning, Lamont spirited Frances, Emma, and Ben to the Gilsey House hotel at 29th and Broadway where they checked into a four-bedroom suite. Lamont could not let them rest without first resolving the issue of the time and location of the wedding. Frances said she believed her grandfather would not want his death to stand in the way of her happiness. Lamont communicated to her the president’s reluctance to be married in a hotel, and his objection to a church wedding. That left the White House. Frances concurred that the wedding should take place “as soon as possible,” and the following Wednesday was deemed the earliest practical date. It would be in the Blue Room, the most intimate parlor in the White House. So it was settled. Lamont telegraphed an anxious President Cleveland:
ARRIVED SAFE. ALL IN GOOD HANDS.
17
DEATH OF A NEWSPAPER
THERE WAS NOT a moment to lose. At 3:00 a.m., Lamont boarded a train for the nation’s capital, and when he arrived in Washington, he went directly to the White House where he briefed the president on his mission. Only then did Cleveland learn the particulars of his own wedding. A White House announcement that President Cleveland would marry Frances Folsom was issued at 8:00 p.m. At last it was official. If Cleveland feared he’d come under attack for robbing the cradle, he needn’t have worried. Not a single member of Congress raised his voice in public opposition to the marriage; as one after another rose to offer congratulations, Speaker of the House John G. Carlisle declared the discussion closed with the words: “The chair hears no objection.” Even the Republican opposition took pleasure at the prospect of a White House wedding. There had been nine previous weddings within the walls of the White House, but never before of a president. (John Tyler, the tenth president, was a widower when he married Julia Gardiner in New York City, in 1844.)
After getting a few hours’ sleep that first night at the Gilsey House, Frances and Emma awoke and went to pay a courtesy call on Rose Cleveland, who was in New York, doing what she could to help out. When they returned to Gilsey House, New York City Mayor William Grace came to pay his respects. So did three friends from Wells College whom Frances hadn’t seen in a year since graduation. Ben had to admit that his cousin wasn’t “quite herself yet.” The ocean voyage, her grandfather’s death, the rushed wedding, and all the attending “racket” had understandably left her “a little nervous.” Later, a huge bouquet from the White House conservatory, delivered by night train, cheered her up.
On May 30, 1886, President Cleveland left Washington on the 4:15 p.m. train bound for New York and the Decoration Day parades. This year, Decoration Day had taken on special meaning because in the intervening year, three great Union generals had died—Grant, McClellan, and Hancock. The holiday was also fraught with political complications. It was supposed to be a day of remembrance for those who had fallen during the Civil War, but Southerners did not recognize Decoration Day; they honored their dead in other ways, on other dates.
Cleveland spent the night in New York at the mansion of his secretary of the navy, William C. Whitney, and the next morning, after a 7:00 a.m. breakfast, he stepped out in his frock coat, buttoned up to the chin, and a glossy silk hat to the hurrahs of an enormous crowd that had gathered at 5th Avenue and 57th Street to congratulate the groom-to-be. There was a healthy color to his cheeks and a merry twinkle in his eyes when, seeming surprised at the hearty reception, he lifted his hat and bowed before the cheering multitude. Then the president boarded a handsome carriage that had come to convey him to the Decoration Day parade route. At the same time, another carriage was picking up Frances at the Gilsey House to